You did read stericson’s hint about it…
It did just work because the nexus he had his hands on had an engineering bootloader and the official one probably won’t have it.

and when the phone does hit the public it will be rooted again

And I want it to :)

I’m guessing that like the Android Developer Phone (also available directly from Google), the Nexus One has a bootloader that will accept any image.

The magical “hack” is just a one line shell script that calls the fastboot reflashing utility.

“Okay, I’m completely confused as to why being able to “root” a device that is running open source software can even be considered an accomplishment.

…

Can someone explain to me why this is relevant?”

Because it’s a mainstream cellphone, which are universally prone to being locked down not so much by the manufacturers but by the demands of cellular providers.

Do you know anything about how cell phones work?

“Because it’s a mainstream cellphone, which are universally prone to being locked down not so much by the manufacturers but by the demands of cellular providers.”

It’s an unlocked phone, there is no “provider”.

“Do you know anything about how cell phones work?”

I fail to see why this is relevant. If we are able to run software as we please, which, if I recall, is one of Android’s strong points, then “rooting” is a non-point.

ReKlipz – First of all These phones do have a provider, and technically any phone you by out of contract has to be unlocked upon request. these are just sold that way if not bought with the contract. unlocked is different then rooted. When you root the android device you have full access to modify it in anyway you want. Normal users do not have this. Providers feel ddos attacks etc will occur if rooted, also forces you to keep there crapware they want shipped, Which for me the HTC Droid Eris has several crapware on it i dont want. Amazon MP3 etc. Rooting would allow me to remove this. So unless you know what you are talking about how about you sit there and twiddle your thumbs and wait for a article you do know? k thx. P.S. no matter what the phone ships with the dev rom/spl can be flashed to it since the rom was leaked and is signed by htc.

therian – nothing is ruined read once again. There is a leaked rom that will flash and allow this exploit reguardless of what google /htc does to modify it before/after they ship it.